Part 4 (2/2)

These little ”solid treatises,” as he called them, were sold at the University library under the name of ”Historical and Geographic Catechisms.” Feeling himself in duty bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,--breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur Ph.e.l.lion received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which occasions the company played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were regaled with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared to invite Monsieur Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he would have regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life.

He said if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of Monsieur Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.

One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris, which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre, Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the country around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He often said to the elder, ”When you have the honor to be a government clerk”; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact sciences and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad to his own devices if he persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of work, Ph.e.l.lion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His official letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.

Monsieur Ph.e.l.lion's face was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.

Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies'

school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated s.h.i.+rt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt, a black coat, and blue trousers. In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived. He had given up taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could exercise over himself. Monsieur Ph.e.l.lion came slowly up the stairs, for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an ”adipose chest.” He saluted Antoine with dignity.

The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange contrast to the virtuous Ph.e.l.lion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful, with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of his life.

Vimeux had such apt.i.tude for work that he despatched it much quicker than any of the other clerks. ”He has a gift, that young man!” Ph.e.l.lion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing to do for the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task; ”and see what a little dandy he is!” Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and a gla.s.s of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and lodged in a furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were tight, half-tight, pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made coats which outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless gloves, and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand, outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these accessories he endeavoured to a.s.sume the air and manner of a wealthy young man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a millionaire who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a woman,--an Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might fall in love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American. He smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in accordance with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year, or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for half that sum. Ph.e.l.lion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and was full of compa.s.sion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty of giving lessons in penmans.h.i.+p,--an honorable career, he said, which would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he promised him a situation in a young ladies'

boarding-school. But Vimeux's head was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent him from having faith in his star. He continued to lay himself out, like a salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite of his empty stomach and the fact that he had fruitlessly exhibited his enormous moustache and his fine clothes for over three years. As he owed Antoine more than thirty francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes every time he pa.s.sed him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man to buy him a roll.

After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head, Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.

Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really a kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but himself.

A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether he wore corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity in relation to what were called ”the English,”--a name given by the government clerks to their creditors. ”English day” means the day on which the government offices are thrown open to the public. Certain then of finding their delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and torment them, asking when they intend to pay, and threatening to attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to remain at their desks and endure this torture. ”It was their place not to make debts,” he said; and he considered his severity as a duty which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary, protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the latter away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper, headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed under the name of ”Miss Fairfax.”

Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to masked b.a.l.l.s during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners, or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with their handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance ill.u.s.trated with stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to answer their purpose.

Bixiou (p.r.o.nounce it Bisiou) was a draughtsman, who ridiculed Dutocq as readily as he did Rabourdin, whom he nicknamed ”the virtuous woman.”

Without doubt the cleverest man in the division or even in the ministry (but clever after the fas.h.i.+on of a monkey, without aim or sequence), Bixiou was so essentially useful to Baudoyer and G.o.dard that they upheld and protected him in spite of his misconduct; for he did their work when they were incapable of doing it for themselves. Bixiou wanted either G.o.dard's or du Bruel's place as under-head-clerk, but his conduct interfered with his promotion. Sometimes he sneered at the public service; this was usually after he had made some happy hit, such as the publication of portraits in the famous Fualdes case (for which he drew faces hap-hazard), or his sketch of the debate on the Castaing affair.

At other times, when possessed with a desire to get on, he really applied himself to work, though he would soon leave off to write a vaudeville, which was never finished. A thorough egoist, a spendthrift and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money solely on himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief for mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected nothing and believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in G.o.d, nor in art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,--insulting and disparaging everything that he could not comprehend. He was the first to paint a black cap on Charles X.'s head on the five-franc coins. He mimicked Dr. Gall when lecturing, till he made the most starched of diplomatists burst their b.u.t.tons. Famous for his practical jokes, he varied them with such elaborate care that he always obtained a victim.

His great secret in this was the power of guessing the inmost wishes of others; he knew the way to many a castle in the air, to the dreams about which a man may be fooled because he wants to be; and he made such men sit to him for hours.

Thus it happened that this close observer, who could display unrivalled tact in developing a joke or driving home a sarcasm, was unable to use the same power to make men further his fortunes and promote him. The person he most liked to annoy was young La Billardiere, his nightmare, his detestation, whom he was nevertheless constantly wheedling so as the better to torment him on his weakest side. He wrote him love letters signed ”Comtesse de M----” or ”Marquise de B--”; took him to the Opera on gala days and presented him to some grisette under the clock, after calling everybody's attention to the young fool. He allied himself with Dutocq (whom he regarded as a solemn juggler) in his hatred to Rabourdin and his praise of Baudoyer, and did his best to support him. Jean-Jaques Bixiou was the grandson of a Parisian grocer. His father, who died a colonel, left him to the care of his grandmother, who married her head-clerk, named Descoings, after the death of her first husband, and died in 1822. Finding himself without prospects on leaving college, he attempted painting, but in spite of his intimacy with Joseph Bridau, his life-long friend, he abandoned art to take up caricature, vignette designing, and drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name of ”ill.u.s.tration.” The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx, with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the steady deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips, a straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old, fair-skinned, with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou; a man, all sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of pleasure of every description, which threw him into a constant round of dissipation.

Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch, s.h.i.+ning equally in the greenroom and at the b.a.l.l.s given among the grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and yet at heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic players.

Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord would break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his ideas made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the lights of intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of checking a witty saying, he would scarify his two neighbors before a dinner was half over. In spite of his skin-deep gayety, a secret dissatisfaction with his social position could be detected in his speech; he aspired to something better, but the fatal demon hiding in his wit hindered him from acquiring the gravity which imposes on fools. He lived on the second floor of a house in the rue de Ponthieu, where he had three rooms delivered over to the untidiness of a bachelor's establishment, in fact, a regular bivouac. He often talked of leaving France and seeking his fortune in America. No wizard could foretell the future of this young man in whom all talents were incomplete; who was incapable of perseverance, intoxicated with pleasure, and who acted on the belief that the world ended on the morrow.

In the matter of dress Bixiou had the merit of never being ridiculous; he was perhaps the only official of the ministry whose dress did not lead outsiders to say, ”That man is a government clerk!” He wore elegant boots with black trousers strapped under them, a fancy waistcoat, a becoming blue coat, collars that were the never-ending gift of grisettes, one of Bandoni's hats, and a pair of dark-colored kid gloves.

His walk and bearing, cavalier and simple both, were not without grace.

He knew all this, and when des Lupeaulx summoned him for a piece of impertinence said and done about Monsieur de la Billardiere and threatened him with dismissal, Bixiou replied, ”You will take me back because my clothes do credit to the ministry”; and des Lupeaulx, unable to keep from laughing, let the matter pa.s.s. The most harmless of Bixiou's jokes perpetrated among the clerks was the one he played off upon G.o.dard, presenting him with a b.u.t.terfly just brought from China, which the worthy man keeps in his collection and exhibits to this day, blissfully unconscious that it is only painted paper. Bixiou had the patience to work up the little masterpiece for the sole purpose of hoaxing his superior.

The devil always puts a martyr near a Bixiou. Baudoyer's bureau held the martyr, a poor copying-clerk twenty-two years of age, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, named Auguste-Jean-Francois Minard. Minard had married for love the daughter of a porter, an artificial-flower maker employed by Mademoiselle G.o.dard. Zelie Lorrain, a pupil, in the first place, of the Conservatoire, then by turns a danseuse, a singer, and an actress, had thought of doing as so many of the working-women do; but the fear of consequences kept her from vice. She was floating undecidedly along, when Minard appeared upon the scene with a definite proposal of marriage. Zelie earned five hundred francs a year, Minard had fifteen hundred. Believing that they could live on two thousand, they married without settlements, and started with the utmost economy.

They went to live, like dove-turtles, near the barriere de Courcelles, in a little apartment at three hundred francs a year, with white cotton curtains to the windows, a Scotch paper costing fifteen sous a roll on the walls, brick floors well polished, walnut furniture in the parlor, and a tiny kitchen that was very clean. Zelie nursed her children herself when they came, cooked, made her flowers, and kept the house. There was something very touching in this happy and laborious mediocrity. Feeling that Minard truly loved her, Zelie loved him. Love begets love,--it is the abyssus abyssum of the Bible. The poor man left his bed in the morning before his wife was up, that he might fetch provisions. He carried the flowers she had finished, on his way to the bureau, and bought her materials on his way back; then, while waiting for dinner, he stamped out her leaves, trimmed the twigs, or rubbed her colors. Small, slim, and wiry, with crisp red hair, eyes of a light yellow, a skin of dazzling fairness, though blotched with red, the man had a st.u.r.dy courage that made no show. He knew the science of writing quite as well as Vimeux. At the office he kept in the background, doing his allotted task with the collected air of a man who thinks and suffers. His white eyelashes and lack of eyebrows induced the relentless Bixiou to name him ”the white rabbit.” Minard--the Rabourdin of a lower sphere--was filled with the desire of placing his Zelie in better circ.u.mstances, and his mind searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea, of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a rapid fortune. His apparent dulness was really caused by the continual tension of his mind; he went over the history of Cephalic Oils and the Paste of Sultans, lucifer matches and portable gas, jointed sockets for hydrostatic lamps,--in short, all the infinitely little inventions of material civilization which pay so well.

He bore Bixiou's jests as a busy man bears the buzzing of an insect; he was not even annoyed by them. In spite of his cleverness, Bixiou never perceived the profound contempt which Minard felt for him. Minard never dreamed of quarrelling, however,--regarding it as a loss of time. After a while his composure tired out his tormentor. He always breakfasted with his wife, and ate nothing at the office. Once a month he took Zelie to the theatre, with tickets bestowed by du Bruel or Bixiou; for Bixiou was capable of anything, even of doing a kindness. Monsieur and Madame Minard paid their visits in person on New-Year's day. Those who saw them often asked how it was that a woman could keep her husband in good clothes, wear a Leghorn bonnet with flowers, embroidered muslin dresses, silk mantles, prunella boots, handsome fichus, a Chinese parasol, and drive home in a hackney-coach, and yet be virtuous; while Madame Colleville and other ”ladies” of her kind could scarcely make ends meet, though they had double Madame Minard's means.

In the two bureaus were two clerks so devoted to each other that their friends.h.i.+p became the b.u.t.t of all the rest. He of the bureau Baudoyer, named Colleville, was chief-clerk, and would have been head of the bureau long before if the Restoration had never happened. His wife was as clever in her way as Madame Rabourdin in hers. Colleville, who was son of a first violin at the opera, fell in love with the daughter of a celebrated danseuse. Flavie Minoret, one of those capable and charming Parisian women who know how to make their husbands happy and yet preserve their own liberty, made the Colleville home a rendezvous for all our best artists and orators. Colleville's humble position under government was forgotten there. Flavie's conduct gave such food for gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her invitations.

The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville was so attached was named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other. Thuillier, called ”the handsome Thuillier,” an ex-Lothario, led as idle a life as Colleville led a busy one. Colleville, government official in the mornings and first clarionet at the Opera-Comique at night, worked hard to maintain his family, though he was not without influential friends. He was looked upon as a very shrewd man,--all the more, perhaps, because he hid his ambitions under a show of indifference. Apparently content with his lot and liking work, he found every one, even the chiefs, ready to protect his brave career. During the last few weeks Madame Colleville had made an evident change in the household, and seemed to be taking to piety.

This gave rise to a vague report in the bureaus that she thought of securing some more powerful influence than that of Francois Keller, the famous orator, who had been one of her chief adorers, but who, so far, had failed to obtain a better place for her husband. Flavie had, about this time--and it was one of her mistakes--turned for help to des Lupeaulx.

Colleville had a pa.s.sion for reading the horoscopes of famous men in the anagram of their names. He pa.s.sed whole months in decomposing and recomposing words and fitting them to new meanings. ”Un Corse la finira,” found within the words, ”Revolution Francaise”; ”Eh, c'est large nez,” in ”Charles Genest,” an abbe at the court of Louis XIV., whose huge nose is recorded by Saint-Simon as the delight of the Duc de Bourgogne (the exigencies of this last anagram required the subst.i.tution of a z for an s),--were a never-ending marvel to Colleville. Raising the anagram to the height of a science, he declared that the destiny of every man was written in the words or phrase given by the transposition of the letters of his names and t.i.tles; and his patriotism struggled hard to suppress the fact--signal evidence for his theory--that in Horatio Nelson, ”honor est a Nilo.” Ever since the accession of Charles X., he had bestowed much thought on the king's anagram. Thuillier, who was fond of making puns, declared that an anagram was nothing more than a pun on letters. The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult problem to the mind of an observer. The clerks in the offices explained it by saying, ”Thuillier is rich, and the Colleville household costly.” This friends.h.i.+p, however, consolidated by time, was based on feelings and on facts which naturally explained it; an account of which may be found elsewhere (see ”Les Pet.i.ts Bourgeois”). We may remark in pa.s.sing that though Madame Colleville was well known in the bureaus, the existence of Madame Thuillier was almost unknown there. Colleville, an active man, burdened with a family of children, was fat, round, and jolly, whereas Thuillier, ”the beau of the Empire” without apparent anxieties and always at leisure, was slender and thin, with a livid face and a melancholy air. ”We never know,” said Rabourdin, speaking of the two men, ”whether our friends.h.i.+ps are born of likeness or of contrast.”

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